Travel

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome,
charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
- Innocents Abroad -- Mark Twain

"It liberates the vandal to travel--you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in
your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort
and satisfaction."
- The American Abroad speech, 1868 - Mark Twain

Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven & hell & I have only a vague
curiosity about one of those.
- Letter to W. D. Howells, 5/20/1891 - Mark Twain

Patriotism & Dissent

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."-- Republican President Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -- James Madison

"When the government fears the people it is a democracy....when the people fear their government it is tyranny..." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." – Herman Goering - Nazi

"patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels." - Samuel Johnson

Electronic Frontier Foundation for Bloggers

Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Guide

Handbook from Reporters Without Borders

Free Speech Online

Individual Rights

War

"I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."--John Murtha Congressman (D-PA)
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"War is a rackett"--Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, United States Marine Corps, 1881 - 1940, Double recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
I'm inclined to agree.--DA
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"Many of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would be so quick and easy don't know anything about war. They come at it from an intellectual perspective, versus having sat in jungles or foxholes and watched their friends get their heads blown off."--Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska
-------"We're in Bush country," Bradach said. "There will be a lot of detractors, people saying we aren't patriots. I'd like to know what they've given up.

There is no way our children died in vain, not if we pay attention, not if we learn. I'm proud of my son. I love the Marines. And I'm very much against this war and always have been.

I guess our children went and were sacrificed for us to take a look at what we let happen. We let this war happen. If nothing else, this is a huge lesson. Watch who you vote for. Watch what they're telling you. Don't be so afraid."--Lynn Bradach, mother of a fallen American Hero, from Oregon, in support of Cindy Sheehan

More "Quotes"

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.--Aristotle

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.--Leonard Bernstein

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.--John Kenneth Galbraith

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.--Albert Einstein

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.--Dante Alighieri

Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all countries - not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of humankind as civilized.--Albert Einstein

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.--Plato

Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.--William E. Simon

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.--Alexander Hamilton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
--Ben Franklin

Regarding "Trickle-Down Economics: "If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows."--John Kenneth Galbraith

"This is not about who they are. This is about who we are. We are Americans and we hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct. And, no, the end does not justify the means. Not now. Not ever, when the means include torturing prisoners." --Republican Senator John McCain

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"--Franklin D. Roosevelt

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. --Edmund Burke

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